Vacancies in Health

WQ.15/2022

WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES BY THE CONNÉTABLE OF ST. JOHN

QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 24th JANUARY 2022

ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 31st JANUARY 2022

Question

“Will the Minister state the number of staff vacancies in each of the following budget areas within Health and Community Services for each of the last 12 months –

1. Chief Nurse;
2. Medical Director;
3. Associate Managing Director;
4. Change Delivery;
5. Clinical Support Services;
6. Digital Delivery;
7. Group Managing Director;
8. Mental Health;
9. Non-Clinical Support Services;
10. Primary Care and Prevention;
11. Social Care;
12. Surgical Services;
13. Medical Services;
14. Women and Children; and

will the Minister further provide the occupancy rates of staffed adult beds for September, October, November, and December for both 2020 and 2021?”

Answer

Following extensive work undertaken to validate and reconcile the vacancy information held across different systems and a review of nursing levels, in November 2021 HCS was able to provide a breakdown of vacancies by budget area for the first time. This information is shown in the table below. HCS continues to review the accuracy of the data.

[Prior to this, we were only able to report on vacancies and vacancy rates in the main patient-facing staff groups as a priority and this varied from the whole department picture.]

Positions are shown as vacancies for the purposes of HR and finance tracking. However, it is important to recognise these roles are currently covered in the main by agency and locum workers. Some are new posts not yet recruited to.

 

Budget Area	Vacancy
Chief Nurse	22
Medical Director	13
Associate Managing Director	8
Change Delivery	7
Clinical Support Services	26
Digital Delivery	10
Group Managing Director	13
Mental Health	46
Non-Clinical Support Services	34

 

Primary Care and Prevention	6
Social Care	25
Surgical Services	63
Medical Services	56
Women’s and Children’s	24
Total	353

Further work continues to validate these figures with the aim of publishing vacancies in this format on a regular basis.

In relation to the efforts to fill vacancies, below is the position on recruitment activity during 2021, which shows that we ended November 2021 with more staff in post than we started the year. [The December 2021 figures are not yet available.] The key figures are:

• 161 leavers in 12 months to November 2021

• Recruited more than 240 people in 12 months to November 2021

• Turnover 8.7% (down from 9.5% on Nov 2020)

 

	January 2021	November 2021	Change
Full time equivalent roles filled	2231	2306	+75
Headcount	2412	2491	+79

With regard to those key patient facing staff groups that were the focus of previous vacancy reporting, the below table shows the number of staff who left in each group over the year (to November 2021):

 

	Total
Staff Group	Leavers	Average Headcount 2021	% Leavers 2021
	2021
Allied Health Professional	22	401	5.5%
Doctors and Consultants	12	168	7.1%
Non-Clinical Support Staff	21	359	5.8%
Nurses and Midwives - Aux	9	370	2.4%
Nurses and
Midwives -	15	647	2.3%
Qualified
Grand Total	79	1945	4.1%

These figures show that our activity continues to bring in more people than leave and that within each patient-facing staff group the number of people is within acceptable levels.

While we do not believe there is evidence of people leaving in large numbers, there are areas (such as theatres, radiography and AHP support to mental health services) that do have a high level of vacancies, which impacts on that area of service and has a knock-on effect on other areas. As a result, we have developed plans to specifically target recruitment into these areas.

Overnight Bed Occupancy, by month and year

 

	Jersey General Hospital*	Orchard House	Older Adult Acute beds (Beech/Cedar)
2020
September	68.04%	71.29%	86.32%
October	69.82%	74.42%	83.72%
November	70.25%	76.37%	76.19%
December	70.63%	70.05%	79.71%
2021
September	65.14%	90.02%	91.19%
October	78.61%	79.72%	88.75%
November	80.38%	90.21%	88.65%
December	82.73%	69.98%	89.99%

Data Source: Hospital Patient Administration System (TrakCare, Report ATD3Z)

*Excluding Maternity and day wards – ie Day Surgery Unit, Aubin Ward (Endoscopy Day Unit), Medical Day Unit, Oncology, Renal Unit, Rozel (private patients day unit). Also excluding Paediatric units (Robin Ward and Special Care Baby Unit).